I apologize if this is a topic that has already been looked into. I haven't been on the forum in a long time and I've been doing some reading lately on canned vs. dry food...however, for CATS.

I am curious what the consensus is on the benefits of feeding canned instead of dry food to dogs. I have a dog that I have tried on various diets including raw. She does not take well to raw. She is probably the pickiest dog I have ever known when it comes to food. Regardless, she has been on Blue Buffalo for awhile and then didn't take to it anymore. I put her on Wellness Senior as it seems to be the only food she doesn't mind and tolerates. I guess I forgot to mention she would also get the runs on certain foods and has a sensitive stomach. So she's been on the dry for awhile. No, its not grain free and I know Wellness isn't the greatest of brands either. But looking at the ingredients, its not bad either. She also gets people food, in terms of boiled chicken, barley or buckwheat, some boiled carrots, yogurt, eggs, etc. She is fine with these foods, no problems or runs.

I've bought her some canned food in the last couple of days and she loves it. Gobbles it up as if she hasn't eaten in days. I bought the Blue Buffalo adult chicken. Again, its not grain free but the ingredients looked pretty decent.

I have read that cats should not at all have any dry food in their diet, but I also know we can't really compare dogs and cats since it is often argued whether dogs are true carnivores...whereas we know cats are.

What is the consensus on feeding an all wet/canned diet to dogs and what brands should I be looking at? Any feedback and experience would be greatly appreciated as clearly this is a topic I missed out on when researching dog foods in the past . Thanks all!

Mostly I would think whatever works best for your dog and is affordable for you. I just looked at dogfoodadvisor.com, thinking they might have an article on it, they didn't but the reviews might be helpful for you. One thing I've heard is that dogs teeth tend to stay cleaner with canned food, contrary to popular belief, because they lick them more. I guess it would depend on how you feel about dealing with all those cans versus a bag of kibble too.

dogs4jen wrote:Mostly I would think whatever works best for your dog and is affordable for you. I just looked at dogfoodadvisor.com, thinking they might have an article on it, they didn't but the reviews might be helpful for you. One thing I've heard is that dogs teeth tend to stay cleaner with canned food, contrary to popular belief, because they lick them more. I guess it would depend on how you feel about dealing with all those cans versus a bag of kibble too.

Thank you for the response I don't mind canned at all. Its not cheaper that's for sure, but if its better for my girl then I'll figure something out. She'll be 13 this August so whatever I can do to make her little granny bum happy and healthy

I think canned is probably better for them, for the moisture and most canned contains less carbs than kibble. It's so prohibitively expensive to feed a larger dog canned and people think it ruins teeth is why you don't see it used often. Plus kibble is easier. But if you can swing it and it agrees with her I would feed quite a bit of canned, it's so well accepted it is great for those picky dogs.

I agree with both GP and D4J-if it works for your dog-it works! Generally the best brand of kibble is recommended or raw...but each dog is going to be different. If that's not what works for her-why bother? Give her (especially at this point in her life) what's easiest and causes the least discomfort (I'd hate to constantly have the runs).

With all of that said-I still thought canned food was bad for teeth. I learned something new

A good alternative to raw is a home cooked diet. My special needs senior didn't do well on raw so I switched her to a home cooked diet and grain free kibble. She gets one home cooked meal (a mixture of cooked vegetables and meat) in the morning and grain free kibble (Orijen Senior) in the evening, both covered with probiotic yoghurt. I do give grain free canned food instead of the home cooked meal sometimes for variety, but it's cheaper to cook the meals yourself, canned is quite expensive. Now that I've eliminated all grains and all potatoes from her diet we finally got rid of her yeast infections completely

But yeah, with a senior just find something that works well and stick to it. If she will do better on canned, go for it.

Cats are more specialized than dogs, so the canned food is more important for them.

Some dogs are excellent water drinkers (some to excess!) and dry food likely doesn't affect them. Other dogs aren't good drinkers, so like cats, getting them to eat their fluids may work better. Each pet is an individual. For large dogs where canned food is too expensive, mixing water with the dry food may be just as good as feeding canned.

If you are interested in home cooking, here's a great place to get a recipe specially made for you and your pet.

If you want to do the water in the kibble route - you can mix the daily food ration with equal parts water and put it in the fridge the night before. When you get up in the morning, the food will have absorbed all the water and be soft. This is what you'd want to do if you can't get the dog to drink all the liquid when added to the food right before feeding - or if the food is too hard for pups/seniors ect.

After having one of my dogs go under for x rays and getting charged way too much for a bag of salt water because she was a little dehydrated, I almost always mix their kibble with water now. I have noticed that my dogs don't drink enough water and I don't believe it is natural to always be eating dry food. Their natural food is not hard and dry.